Correction, please!

Gaul and Wormwood 

ITEM: At a Franco-African summit, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe "told French radio he 'felt at home' in Paris and praised French President Jacques Chirac for inviting him," reported the South African Press Association on February 21st. Mugabe told Radio France Internationale: "We leave with a very good impression of France." Said Mugabe of the French leader, "He put his foot down on principle."

CORRECTION: Actually, both Jacques Chirac and Robert Mugabe have stomped on principles. In this case, Mugabe gave Paris the appearance of being a power broker attempting to fix the crisis in Zimbabwe, while providing cover for Chirac by siding with the French position on Iraq.

By harassing, arresting, and torturing political opponents, holding Stalinesque show trials, and seizing almost all of the country's commercial farms, Mugabe has brought Zimbabwe down to the point where about eight million Zimbabweans face famine. Last year, the European Union imposed travel bans "against Mugabe and his coterie of thugs and thieves," reported Melbourne's Age, "in protest over election rioting and an orgy of state-sponsored terror. Chirac is shredding that principled stand' having welcomed the Zimbabwean despite those restrictions.

The despot probably did feel at home in France. When a formal request was filed for the arrest of Mugabe, under French anti-torture laws, the complainant was arrested. Meanwhile, British media took note of the dictator's wife, 40 years his junior, going on a spree of Parisian boutiques -- sporting [pounds sterling]180 sunglasses and a [pounds sterling]25,000 Rolex, while staying with the president in a [pounds sterling]10,000-a-night, 33-room suite.

Developing Alien Nation

ITEM: "Whether the United States has a problem with illegal immigration may be largely a matter of the way one defines the term," contends United Press International for February 4th. UPI continues: "'If the question of terrorism is removed from the equation, there really isn't one,' says Assistant Professor Mark Bauer of the Chicago Kent College of Law. The professor continued: 'No one knows what immigration policy should be.... One of our closest allies is Mexico.... When you're dealing with allies, you have to watch the implications of what you're doing.'"

CORRECTION: Actually most Americans know exactly what should be done about immigration, especially illegal border jumping: Enforce the law. The elite, however, think differently. This was proven in spades by polling done not long ago for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, which found that only 14 percent of the foreign policy elite believe the present level of immigration poses a "critical threat to the vital interests" of the U.S. Only 22 percent of the elite say reducing illegal immigration should be a "very important" goal of foreign policy. On no other issue polled were differences so great. According to the polling results, a full 60 percent of the public at large think the level of immigration is a critical threat, and 70 percent say reducing illegal immigration should be a very important policy goal.

Cold Facts on Arctic Oil

ITEM: Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.)filed legislation to designate almost 1.6 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness, banning oil and gas exploration there. Markey said on February 13th that "the oil industry is in a state of lobbying frenzy" and "wants to brand [ANWR] with scars for a lifetime."

ITEM: Activists from Maine, reported that state's Morning Sentinel on February 17th, are playing "an important part in the ANWR debate." Some maintain there are "birds that migrate through Maine or overwinter here before heading to the ANWR coastal plain for breeding...." One activist "talks about how this drilling dilemma could one day be in Maine's own backyard because the oil and gas industry would like to get access to Georges Bank, 'and for people on the coast of Maine, especially fisher folk, they hear that and they're like, whoa."'

CORRECTION: Drilling for oil in a tiny corner of a treeless tundra 3,000 miles away will do little harm to local wildlife. And even New England liberals need oil, and ANWR is estimated to contain the equivalent of 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia.

Previous scare mongering, such as warning that the caribou herds would be decimated by drilling in nearby Prudhoe Bay, proved spurious. The caribou population there has grown more than sevenfold. In addition, experts from the U.S. Geological Survey now say that the ANWR crude oil may be of the sweet, low-sulfur variety prized by refiners because of its relative environmental benefits.

Markey's allegation about permanent scarring is also bogus. Even President Clinton's Energy Department, as noted by the National Center for Public Policy Research, "confirmed that current technology makes environmentally friendly drilling possible. Ice-based roads, bridges, drilling pads, and airstrips have become the standard for drilling in the Alaskan North Slope. It leaves virtually no marks indicating it was on the tundra; ice structures simply melt in the spring." How much of Alaska would be affected by this drilling? It's comparable to a postage stamp on a football field.